Friday, December 17, 2010

Namco Bandai Games and NEC will start the substantiative experiment of the system to manage information of electric vehicles (EVs) used in car sharing next January. The system will put together information on the location and charging status of the shared EVs on the Internet and enable the users to know what EVs are available in what parking lot and how much they are charged through PC and smart phone. The experiment will last for two months between mid-January and mid-March next year in Yokohama. Nissan Motor will provide two units of “Leaf” to be put on the market on 20th of this month. Each of the two units carries the standard built-in communications equipment, from which such information as location and charging status will be transmitted to the server, and the information in the server will be browed via the Internet. About 250 participants from general public will be recruited via the Internet. They will experience booking EVs and browsing information on EVs. This experiment is part of the substantiative experiment of IT infrastructure that supports smart grids. The smart grid is supposed to be effective if it is combined with in-vehicle battery.